Habitat Soundscaping - a Fresh Take on Collaboration, Part 2

This doesn’t happen often, but the name of this new offering from Plantronics – Habitat Soundscaping – is so unusual and so hard to connect with, that it warranted an entire post to review. Not only does the name need explaining, but so does the offering itself, and that’s what this post focuses on. Needless to say, this places a whole set of challenges on Plantronics for getting this offering to market, but that’s not my concern here. Rather, I’m trying to show how this is a new approach to the multi-faceted set of needs that drive collaboration, and that decision-makers need to look beyond the technology solutions from the UC vendors.

Again, what is Habitat Soundscaping?

Returning to this question from my last post, the first thing to say is that this is not a product. While there is hardware and infrastructure involved, Habitat Soundscaping is a bit like UCaaS – Unified Communications as a Service. It’s not a collaboration solution per se, as it covers the entire workspace, regardless what activities employees are engaged in.

Like UCaaS, it’s a platform, and it’s hosted in the cloud. This makes it akin to IaaS – Infrastructure as a Service – as it is consumed on a subscription basis, but differs in that it doesn’t replace anything, such as legacy hardware. As such, Habitat Soundscaping is new, and will require a new line item in the Opex budget.

As for the solution itself, the basic idea is to leverage technology to create a more harmonious workspace that by extension will be more conducive to collaboration. The reasons as to why businesses need this will be explored over the next two posts – and they’re quite valid – but the solution needs to be explained first. I say “explained” because it has three distinct components – “pillars”- that you wouldn’t normally associate with collaboration, but have been integrated in a way to provide a fresh approach that just might resonate for your current situation.

Pillar #1 - Biophilic audio

The importance of audio needs no explanation, but biophilia does. This comes from the field of psychology, and refers to the human desire to connect with nature. The thinking is that the more connected to nature workers feel, the calmer they will be, and better able to focus on their work. When the terms are combined, “biophilic audio” refers to a sophisticated mix of technologies that intelligently manages audio activity in the workspace.

Without getting into the details, the main idea is that speech occurring around you is dispersed in a way this isn’t distracting to your work. This makes the workplace calmer – at least acoustically – more like being in nature, and should improve the quality of work. In my view, this is like noise-cancelling headphones, whereby the audio you want stays in, but the extraneous audio you don’t want is blocked out. Clearly, as workspaces become denser and more open, distracting audio is going to be a problem.

Pillar #2 – Visual elements

Building on the calming influences of dispersed audio – along the lines of white noise – this pillar has both audio and visual elements, and here the biophilic tie-in to nature becomes even stronger. There are actually two aspects to consider here, with the first being purely visual. This takes the form of digital views of nature mounted on walls and ceilings, acting as virtual skylights and windows. Short of working in the forest or having spectacular views of real nature from your windows, this is the next best thing to bring the calming vibe of nature to the great indoors.

Even more engaging is the use of waterfalls, a feature you don’t normally see at work other than in the occasional lobby to impress visitors. These waterfalls are instead part of a holistic solution designed to optimize the overall environment for improved productivity. Three varieties are offered, with two being with real water continuously flowing in a contained area, and third that is all digital. Regardless, the essence of nature is undeniable, and all of these elements nicely reinforce the biophilia theme.

Pillar #3 - Intelligent software

There actually is a lot of technology driving the audio and visual stimuli, and that’s the most relevant part to our readers. It’s one thing to post pictures of aspirational nature scenes on the wall and place a few potted plants in the corner. Habitat Soundscaping is an integrated system designed to manage the overall environment in a proactive manner. Based on a network of speakers and sensors scientifically distributed across the office area, a cloud-based software application dynamically manages sound levels in real time.

In other words, during busy times when many concurrent conversations are taking place, the biophilic audio operates on a higher level to minimize the distraction caused by extraneous speech. During quieter times, the audio is toned down, and can be varied across various spaces. This makes the system highly adaptive since different spaces will have different levels of audio, all of which will vary over the course of the work day.

In this regard, Habitat Soundscaping strives to bring an optimal mix of nature’s calming elements indoors with the intention of improving working conditions – especially when in close quarters – so employees can be more productive. The intelligent software makes everything run seamlessly in the background so IT doesn’t need to manage it, and employees can focus more on work, whether for personal tasks or collaborating with others.

Disclaimer: Blog contents express the viewpoints of their independent authors and
are not reviewed for correctness or accuracy by
Toolbox for IT. Any opinions, comments, solutions or other commentary
expressed by blog authors are not endorsed or recommended by
Toolbox for IT
or any vendor. If you feel a blog entry is inappropriate,
click here to notify
Toolbox for IT.